Lectio divina is an ancient practice of praying with a text. Its phases of guided reflections can be adapted to any situation that requires listening with the heart as well as the mind. Davis relates how she used this classic practice with high school students and with a difficult person in her own life. She provides step-by-step instructions for
Viewing Conflict with Lectio Divina and
Healing Conflict with Lectio Divina.

What starts out as a movie about dogs abandoned on a garbage dump morphs into a flick poking affectionate fun at Japanese culture, while taking stabs at the contemporary world's fascination with authoritarian political leaders and conspiracy theories.

More Films: Big Fish & Begonia, The Heart of Nuba, I Kill Giants, King in the Wilderness, Shelter, Submergence

This harrowing look at the heroic work of the Syrian Civil Defense's White Helmets -- civilian volunteers who are usually the first responders in the country's civil war -- was awarded the Grand Jury Documentary Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. As one of the most unflinching and heart-affecting anti-war documentaries ever made, it deserves all the acclaim it can garner.

More DVDs: All the Money in the World, Dolores, The Greatest Showman, Molly's Game, The Tribes of Palos Verdes, The Work

In the seventh volume in his bestselling Ten Poems series of gift book anthologies, Housden observes, "Poetry uniquely combines imaginative power and conscious intelligence, inspiration and hard work, and its effect is to illuminate our lives and breathe new life, new seeing, new tasting into the world we thought we knew."

More Books: Gratefulness, The Journey Never Ends, Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Life, Transforming Communities, What Are We Doing Here?, A World of Three Zeroes

Young people are bringing heightened urgency to calls for carefully legislated gun regulation. Here we offer articles, blog posts, book excerpts, films, poetry, prayers, quotes, spiritual practices, and more to give you a multi-faceted view of ways to increase understanding and decrease violence.

Conversations allow us to bridge differences, develop empathy, and discover new pathways to constructive change. What could be more vital in creating a fulfilling life or in allowing democracy to flourish?

Every April is National Poetry Month in the United States. What is your personal experience of poetry? Here we share ours and also recommend seven collections of sacred poetry. Be sure to visit our homepage daily during April and read "Today's Poem for Poetry Month."

A Thought to Carry with You

This week marks the 48th Anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, a failed moon landing that became a test of courage and resilience. "Nobody gets everything he or she yearns for," writes Harold Kushner in Overcoming Life's Disappointments. "I look at the world and see three sorts of people: those who dream boldly even as they realize that a lot of their dreams will not come true; those who dream more modestly and fear that even their modest dreams may not be realized; and those who are afraid to dream at all, lest they be disappointed."

The three Apollo 13 astronauts -- James A. Lovell, John L. "Jack" Swigert, and Fred W. Haise -- and their NASA support team on earth had reached for the moon, and even without the intended landing, they went further into space than any human beings before them. To say it was a disappointment when an explosion crippled their spacecraft would be an understatement. In a matter of moments, the astronauts went from the mission's thrilling possibilities to the likelihood that they would not survive. But their attention did not dwell on devastation. It took extraordinary ingenuity, determination, and courage for them to make it safely home to earth.

"I would wish for more people who dreamed boldly and trusted their powers of resilience to see them through the inevitable disappointments," writes Kushner. This week, re-imagine a dream that you thought might be too bold. What would it take to reach for that dream and to generate a brilliant back-up scheme if it didn't turn out as planned?